UN meeting Mbeki on peace process

The head of the UN peacekeeping mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea is holding talks with South African President Thabo Mbeki on the peace process between the two countries, the UN said on Thursday. Legwaila Joseph Legwaila flew into South Africa on Wednesday to meet Mbeki, the current chairman of the newly-formed African Union. The UN’s Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea (UNMEE) has recently expressed concern over the three-year-old peace process which is now at a critical stage. “The African Union has been an integral part of the peace process from the very beginning,” UNMEE spokeswoman Gail Bindley Taylor Sainte told a press briefing. An independent boundary commission set up by both countries has ruled that the now symbolic town of Badme, where the two-year border conflict flared up and which is currently administered by Ethiopia, belongs to Eritrea. Diplomats in Addis Ababa told IRIN that the UN is “working towards better dialogue" between Ethiopia and Eritrea. The two governments have not had face-to-face talks since the Algiers peace deal of December 2000 which formally ended the war. The only exchanges take place at Military Coordination Commission (MCC) meetings between high-ranking armed forces officials from the two countries, under UN auspices. The Ethiopian government has reportedly sent a letter and 50-plus page legal document to the diplomatic community in Addis Ababa concerning the controversial ruling that placed Badme in Eritrea. Ethiopia has also asked the UN for more support over the ruling. “At the moment UNMEE is looking at the situation,” Sainte said. "This situation does not concern us directly though it does impact on the peace process, so we are following it very closely to see what happens.”